Late in the fourth quarter of the Steelers-Ravens, Pittsburgh appeared to have scored a touchdown on a Le’Veon Bell run to cut the Baltimore lead to 22-20 with a two-point attempt awaiting. On the play, Bell’s helmet was ripped off on a hit by Jimmy Smith then Bell’s head strikes the ground, presumably concussing him. Bell laid on the field for minutes, only to be assisted off the field by multiple people.

From there, the automatic scoring review kicked in, forcing refs to look at whether Bell had broke the plane of the goal line before his helmet ripped off. I can’t fault the refs necessarily. That’s the letter of the law in the NFL. A play ends when a helmet comes off. If anything, this is a rule that requires a correction in the off-season. If a ball carrier loses his helmet going to the ground, his progress should still be accounted for all the way to the ground. The way the rule is written now, Le’Veon Bell was concussed for nothing. You could say it actually creates an incentive for defenders to knock the helmets off other players.

The system for keeping it on the head is pretty good on most helmets I’ve seen and used. There was a discussion a while ago about penalizing players when their helmets come off too often because players were wearing them too loose for comfort/quick release/to look more cool.

I don’t know if that was a problem on this play. Any helmet that needs to be removable will have limiting factors in its ability to stay on the head. If the hit was violent enough it could remove even a well designed, well adjusted helmet.

I’m not sure the concussion was caused by Bell hitting his head on the ground. Looking back on the footage, Bell got hit twice in the head – the announcers focused on Jimmy Smith, but I think the real damage was Courtney Upshaw’s helmet-to-helmet hit directly to the back of Bell’s head. That was the hit that popped the helmet off.

Hard to tell, but it looks like Bell’s hand relaxes immediately after that hit, suggesting that’s when the concussion happened.

Also looks like that Upshaw got Smith on that hit too. Dude just came through and got both of them.

Should’ve been two personal foul flags and an automatic first down. And a huge, massive fine for Upshaw. And those refs should be fucking fired.

Here’s the problem: if you don’t blow the play dead immediately, defenders have a responsibility to continue trying to tackle the player who no longer has a helmet until he falls all the way to the ground. Players who are tackling other players sometimes get hit in the head. I am hoping that everyone understands why that would be dangerous.

Your proposed rule change (and the one Ape seems to be implying should happen) would probably actually lead to a death on the football field.

There’s the rub, though. They did not stop the play immediately. It should not be reviewable. Review the scoring play for knee or other body part down before the plane is broken, but helmet being off? No, let’s not make that a reviewable part of the play. If the refs are so fucking concerned about player safety, they need to blow the play dead as it happens. Taking the TD away from him AFTER he suffers the injury does nothing to protect him.

Except it does. The play is going to be reviewed. If players know that nothing after the helmet coming off matters (because it will be called correctly on the field or reversed on review) they can let off. If they don’t, it’s melon splattering time.

If they’re going to review whether it’s a TD or not why can’t they also review the fact the defender led with his helmet and hit him with a 15-yard penalty or give the Steelers a frersh set of downs. The play is dead because of a technicality but the technicality only happens because of the illegal hit.